Scoring with defense

Football players Neymar, Ronaldo and Messi are world famous and are admired nowadays like they were pop stars. Sport stars seem to have their own logo, Ronaldo and Messi do (see below) and Neymar does too. As a star you want to protect your name and logo. Against abuse but also as a basis for the often numerous licensing contracts. A clothing manufacturer wants permission to use the name of the football player on clothing. In this respect, and in order to give the license, a registration of the name for clothing is of course recommended, just to avoid unexpected encounters with other trademark holders, which put the contract at risk.While this realization starts to emerge, Neymar was rather late with protecting his name. And when your are late, you are facing problems. The name NEYMAR was registered in the EU by a Portuguese man. Normally, you’re too late, even if you are a superstar. The only exception is when there is bad faith. And that was clearly the case here. The Portuguese had in fact also registered the logo, NJR and NEYMAR JR as a trade mark, for amongst others clothing.The EUIPO saw bad intentions and ruled in favour of Neymar. But still, this is an important lesson, without a defense, you can not score.